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J. J. Abrams Reveals His ‘Star Trek’ Movie

By Dave Itzkoff November 18, 2008 9:51 amNovember 18, 2008 9:51 am

J. J. Abrams, newly-minted Trekker. (Dan Steinberg/Associated Press)

“I’ve never been a fan of ‘Star Trek,’” J. J. Abrams told a movie theater full of journalists on Monday night – a perfectly reasonable sentiment, except that Mr. Abrams happens to be the director of the big-budget, high-stakes “Star Trek” film that Paramount is releasing in May.

“Despite all the stuff that a non-fan would find silly, clichéd, crazy, my goal was to make it feel legitimate,” he said. To his mind, that meant exploring the earliest adventures of Kirk, Spock and company – set before the era of the original 1960s “Star Trek” television series – and recasting familiar roles with young, polished, relatively untested actors.

The unspoken but understood message: if Mr. Abrams’s “Star Trek” is going to justify its estimated $150 million budget, it had better reach beyond the die-hard fans of Vulcans, Tribbles and dilithium crystals.

Mr. Abrams then played the new trailer for “Star Trek” as well as four longer clips from the film. While Paramount wouldn’t dare let us photograph or record these scenes, under threat of torture by mind-controlling Ceti eels, we’ll do our best to describe them the old-fashioned way.

1.The young James T. Kirk (played by Chris Pine) is drinking forlornly at a bar in 23rd century Iowa (where they still serve Budweiser). Without much success, he flirts with a young Starfleet recruit named Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and picks a fight with four Starfleet grunts who clobber him. Kirk’s bravado impresses another Starfleet officer, Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood), who knew Kirk’s late father, and goads Kirk into joining the Starfleet Academy. “Your father was the captain of a starship for 12 minutes,” Pike tells him. “He saved 800 lives, including your mother’s. Including yours. I dare you to do better.”

2.A medical officer named McCoy (Karl Urban) helps smuggle Kirk aboard the starship Enterprise by injecting him with a vaccine that induces the symptoms of a mysterious disease. While his hands and tongue swell up, Kirk races around the ship, trying to convince the crew they’re about to enter a trap set by the nefarious Romulans. We get our first glimpse of the young Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto of television’s “Heroes,” in a mop-top haircut and pointy ears), as well as Spock’s human mother (Winona Ryder) and the Romulan bad guy Nero (Eric Bana, in heavy-duty prosthetic makeup).

3.The Enterprise jettisons Kirk on a remote ice planet, where he meets the aged, future incarnation of Spock (ladies and gentlemen, Mister Leonard Nimoy!) as well as a young Starfleet engineer named Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg). With Old Spock’s help, Scotty completes a mathematical formula that permits living beings to be teleported onto vessels moving at warp speed. (Of course.) As Kirk and Scotty prepare to beam back onto the Enterprise, Kirk wonders if time-traveling and peeking into the future is cheating; Old Spock tells him it’s “a trick I learned from an old friend.”

4.In a lengthy action sequence, Kirk, Sulu (John Cho) and a third, red-shirted Starfleet recruit (don’t get too attached to him) parachute from the upper atmosphere of the planet Vulcan onto a giant drill that is burrowing a hole to the center of the planet. Kirk and Sulu disable the drill, but not before it drops a charge into the planet’s core. Back on the Enterprise, Spock realizes that the charge, when detonated, will create a black hole where his home world used to be – and he now has mere minutes to evacuate the planet’s entire population.

What happens next? Will the new “Star Trek” erase our bitter memories of the last five sequels? (Not including “First Contact,” which I now concede was a pretty good entry in the series.–D.I.) With a crowded summer 2009 season approaching, and movie studios nervously watching their wallets, you can expect many more updates between now and May 8.

I would enjoy hearing Shatner’s reaction when he heard that Nimoy has a role in the film. Given what is in the material above, someone as reckless as the Kirk he’s creating would never be made captain of this huge ship. And I might add that in order to launch such a ship you’d make sections and join it in space, unless Abrams has created a new field of physics (and he probably has).

Taking on a project because it’s such huge money though you don’t connect to the source material is usually a huge mistake. Abrams does have a vision (“Lost” being his signature), I hope he gets to the point in the industry where he can create free of piggy-backing. Roddenberry had a vision too, I don’t see much of it in these trailers. As someone pointed out in an overview of various television shows, his grounded but optimistic view of hope for the future (some of which has come true) got curdled with every new incarnation until there was no audience for it. This looks like it’s in that line (Kirk makes a pass at Uhura in a bar, please). Kirk in this incarnation seems to be W Bush – hardly leadership class now or in the future. Which may be his point, but that’s not the material’s appeal.

In the original TV series, Kirk takes over the Enterprise after Pike. Everyone on the Enterprise is a stranger to him. But here we have him meeting members of the crew way before that. Not a very rational prequel. In fact, nothing about the story as described in the article makes very much sense.

It frustrates me deeply that no one (except Patrick Stewart) ever noticed that all the great Star Trek episodes (5% perhaps of the total) were character pieces, not plot-driven adventures. So whenever someone decides to make a Star Trek movie, which would be a perfect opportunity to get into the characters, what do they do? They come up with some stupid story and dumb action sequences, of course. Sigh.

I don’t think we need to worry about the physics of lifting a starship from the surface into space, in a franchise that has always had anti-gravity devices, universal translators, and holodecks.

Kirk has always had a bravado, and that it hasn’t been tempered yet in his youth, comes as no surprise. This is a Kirk on his way to learning to be the captain of the Enterprise that we all know. It’s always easy to throw analogies at movies, and more often than not, in science fiction films (remember all those Bush comparisons for Revenge of the Sith?). Let’s wait until the movie is released and we can see it in its entirety before making leaps of assumptions.

If you have been unfortunate enough to watch an episode of Fringe, it should be clear that Abrams is incapable of introducing science into his fiction. The rest of his body of work will also show that he has no penchant for making things “feel legitimate”. (I admit i sometimes watch Lost, but it is for the characters more than the ridiculous and strained plot.)

I would not consider myself a Trekkie by any stretch, but I have enjoyed the episodes and movies I have seen. After reading this article, it is clear to me that Abram’s attempt will be a monumental disater.

Two predictions: it will make a lot of money and it’ll be awful. When a director doesn’t like the source material or the franchise, the results are ghastly. Look at “Quantum of Solace,” whose director did not like Bond movies and produced an unlikable Bond movie. He deconstructed the genre and loaded it with politics, leaching out wit, fun, true excitement and glamour–the things we go to Bond movies to relish.

It’s an error to believe that raising the stakes makes for a better movie. Better movies have better storytelling, writing, and acting. Having the MacGuffin be the destruction of Vulcan is desperate and silly. And a giant drill? OMG!

J.J. Abrams at least admits he hasn’t followed or been a fan of Star Trek. That’s a shame-as he’s obviously missing the point. Fantasy science- based in actual truth-coupled with an overall positive intelligent outlook toward the future and the presumption that good does triumph over evil makes for good entertainment and at times provocative thought. Racism, climate change, indigenous culture preservation and species extinction have all been topics explored under the guise of a TV sci-fi show. How timely.
This film unfortunately sounds like the kind of product that Sarah Palin would turn out if given the opportunity to do a piece on global economy and climate change.

Will the new “Star Trek” erase our bitter memories of the last five sequels?
Hold it, Dave…which five sequels (or, more to the point, which among them) did you see? I’ll admit there were some serious clinkers in the franchise (the first one comes to mind) but there were a few solid ones, so I’m goona need some names put forth here for reference.

As for the new one? Much as directors snicker in public about it, I think a lot of them harbor the desire to take a crack at ST (whichever generation).

I may be in the minority on this, but this seems to be Abrams m.o.: take an interesting concept and really mess it up. “Alias” just kept getting rebooted into oblivion, for example.

How much buzz would there be about a movie with those plot elements if it was called something other than “Star Trek?” Would those be people that you would want to pay $8-$10 plus popcorn, etc. to go see???

To BWB: I’m not a licensed, card-carrying movie critic for the Times, but speaking as a civilian, I’ll have to say I was underwhelmed by “The Final Frontier” and “The Undiscovered Country,” as well as “Nemesis” and “Insurrection.” I could live with “Generations.” Your mileage may vary, of course.

The Times writer hopes that this movie will erase the “last five sequels.” Actually two of those were very well done, and did solid box office: Trek 6 was a fond, dramatic farewell to the classic cast, and “First Contact” was the lone Next Generation movie that got things right. If they can erase Kirk’s awful death in “Generations,” that will be good enough for me.

As a 30-year fan, I can’t WAIT for this movie! I don’t care about the little details … just make a good film, and get the essence of Trek right. The trailer blew me away, so we’re off to a good start. Finally, it’s nice to see Trek generating excitement again.

I agree with many here. I’m not a fan of Abrams, frankly. I may see the movie and I may not. I’m a huge fan of the original series and the movies. Keeping Kirk, Spock, et al true to character is vital; anyone should know that. True, they’re younger in this one, of course, but we don’t change *that* much over the years.

Based on the new trailer, I’m afraid they won’t be true to character. Time will tell.

I don’t think the sequels were all clinkers, except the very 1st one. Of course I loved the original Star Trek. If the movie doesn’t appeal to fans of Star Trek etc. It will not go over with the rest of those attracted to this type of movie. I think that the era of Star Trek is OVER.

The ethic of (the good) star trek shows and movies has been characters striving to be more noble, more dignified, and more compassionate in the face of forces that would push them to be thoughtless, reckless, or violent. That ethic inspired a vision for a future of human culture. Even a very young Kirk (as in the original star trek) was brash, but not reckless; he made passionate decisions that were always driven by his core belief in exploration, discovery, and making peaceful contact with new life.

Though it may be premature to judge from the trailer, this movie does not appear to have that ethic, or really any moral driving force. It seems flashy and action-packed with tension-filled drama that doesn’t carry meaning. Unfortunately JJ Abrams, who has “never been a fan of star trek,” may not understand that the appeal was never phasers and pointy ears or any of the other geeky details that he was trying to avoid; it was the capacity of science fiction to tell stories about characters that strive beyond their limitations, not in a heroic sense, but in a moral sense. We’ll see.

Note to Abrams: When you try to sell your movie by first talking about yourself as not being a Star Trek fan, it tells this fan since ’70 that you don’t care if you offend the fans.

With that attitude, why even make this a Star Trek movie? Why not create your own space-adventure universe, instead of ripping off Star Trek, putting your smugly superior spin on it and getting to call it Star Trek?

“Will the new “Star Trek” erase our bitter memories of the last five sequels?”

If you are counting First Contact in those last 5 sequels, then I disagree with you. First Contact was one of the most polished trek movies that did actually appeal to outside fans more than the other films.

I’m a huge trekkie. I’m intrigued with the descriptions of the scenes listed above. I think pitting the crew in campy wild situation is perfect for the TOS characters. I just hope it’s not all action and we do have character development.

However, Kirk should not be flirting with Uhura. She was the one woman that he respected not to flirt with. There should be more of a Scotty\Uhuru love interest like they “flirted” with in the original series. (pun intended)

Some of the comments here have their hearts in the right place, but jump to unnecessary conclusions. The writers of the new film Kurtzman & Orci are serious Trekkers, and Orci is a fully-fledged canonista (one who studies and respects the ‘canon’ of established historical events in Star Trek). In a blog exchange this morning on trekmovie.com, Orci confirms that the movie respects the three core philosophies of Star Trek and reaches for contemplative science fiction.

The core philosophies are most likely the Vulcan IDIC: Infinite Diversity Infinite Combinations, the Starfleet Prime Directive: that our heroes should never interfere with the technological and cultural development of another alien society… and most likely, the core optimism of Gene Roddenberry: that the divisions of 20th Century Earth will be closed and Earth will unite.

Orci also stated that the new movie is probably less militaristic than Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the platinum standard for Trek films to date.

Keep breathing Trek fans. The core group of producers, writers and the director refer to themselves as The Supreme Court, and they’re quite balanced between extreme fans and outsiders. It’s going to be fun.